


& all the things that i didn’t do

by inconocible



Series: as a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn [5]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crying, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death in Chapter 1 - Major Character Death in Chapter 2, Self-Hatred, Soft Family Feels, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:18:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: “I am so sorry, son,” Hosea murmurs, holding him, running one hand up and down Arthur’s back, and he really means it, Arthur knows he does.Dutch likes to talk big, boastful and affectionate and big, sometimes, about raisin’ those boys, about how both he and Hosea have been excellent guardians and caretakers and teachers for Arthur and John over the years, about how they’ve both taught them everything they both know -- and, it ain’t that Arthur doesn’t love Dutch, it ain’t that at all, because he does -- but, here, now, in this moment, with his spinning head and the tear tracks drying on his cheeks all cradled into the dip of Hosea’s collarbone, with his nose pressed against the tough cords of Hosea’s neck, with his body and his spirit wrapped completely in Hosea’s protective, gentle care, Arthur thinks he probably loves Hosea more than anyone, more than anything. More, even, than Dutch.





	& all the things that i didn’t do

**Author's Note:**

> i have the weight of the world on my chest  
> well sometimes [it feels that way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBXK8PAtBKQ)
> 
> p.s. please mind the tags, cowpokes --  
> national suicide prevention lifeline: 1-800-273-8255  
> <3

**1889**

Arthur slides off of Bo unsteadily, winding his fingers in her mane as he struggles to get his legs back under him. She whickers and snorts at him, tosses her head in annoyance. “Hush, girl,” he says, trying to stand up straighter, clinging to her for balance. Copper pops up out of nowhere, somehow, wagging and jumping up at his hip, and Arthur lets go of Bo with his left hand, reaches out to push ineffectively at him, swaying a little on his feet as he does. “Get down, nosy,” he grumbles, pushing at his head; Copper sits, but shoves his nose into Arthur’s left palm, and Arthur sighs, gives in, scritches his fingers behind Copper’s soft ears.

“God,” Arthur sighs, leaning forward into Bo’s neck, leaning his forehead into the spot where his right hand is still in her mane, willing his head to stop spinning.

“I thought you wasn’t gonna be back for a week,” a voice is saying, coming closer, heavy steps across the camp.

The guy that was up keeping the evening watch, a new guy, one Dutch recruited more for muscle and gunslinging than for anything else -- he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t questioned Arthur when he’d ridden back into camp days ahead of schedule.

Leave it to little Marston, then, nearly seventeen and all full of hisself, to be nosing around in Arthur’s business.

“Fuck off, John,” Arthur groans, lifting his head, squinting, seeing four of John, at first, until he scrubs his free hand over his face, blinks his eyes a few times.

“Hey!” John says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “What’re you doin’ back the same day you left, drunk as a fuckin’ skunk, tellin’ me to fuck off for no good reason?” he asks angrily.

“What’m I doin’?” Arthur asks. He finally lets go of Bo, takes a step back, squints at her, thinks about how much energy it’ll take to curry her, energy that he doesn’t have. He looks at John, fishes in his back pocket. “I’m givin’ you a dollar to brush Bo down for me an’ leave me the fuck alone,” he says, holding the crumpled, dirty bill out to John.

“Seriously?” John asks.

Arthur sighs, digs in his pocket again. “Two dollars,” he says, holding a second bill out to John, and John huffs out an angry sigh.

“Guess you’re pro’ly too drunk to do it,” John mutters, coming over, taking the money, tucking it into his own pocket, stroking one hand down the side of Bo’s face. “What fuckin’ happened to you, anyhow?” he asks. “You an’ ‘Liza fight or somethin’?”

“Don’t, Marston,” Arthur says angrily, turning toward him, tensing himself for a fight, pointing an aggressive finger at him. “Don’t -- don’t you talk about her no more.”

John frowns, raises an eyebrow, raises his hands open in front of his chest. “Okay, okay, god damn,” he says. He rounds Bo, reaching for her bridle and her reins to hitch her up to the post. “Reckon you better sleep it off, huh,” he says.

Arthur closes his eyes, tries to think through the fog in his brain. “Where’s Hosea?” he asks.

John shrugs. “With Dutch,” he says, and there are a million ways Arthur could choose to interpret that -- rolling his eyes about how they’ve finally kissed and made up; or feeling genuine gladness about how Hosea seems to finally be moving out of his mourning period over Miss Bessie, how he and Dutch seem to finally be starting to repair their friendship -- but all Arthur truly cares about, in this moment, is that he can --

“ ‘m gonna go, uh, _borrow_ some uv ‘is liquor,” Arthur concludes, his words all slurring together with his thoughts.

“What?” John exclaims. “You’ve pretty obviously already been drinkin’ a lot, idiot.”

“An’ I’m gonna drink some more, _idiot_ ,” Arthur says.

John’s frowning at him again. “What, did the barkeep kick you outta the saloon?”

Arthur frowns right back, wishing he could make John shut the fuck up. “Maybe he did, but the ride sobered me up a little too much.”

John scoffs. “You ain’t _sober_ , why you gotta -- ”

“An’ _you_ ain’t my daddy!” Arthur exclaims sourly. “You’re goddamn nosier than this dog here,” he grumbles. “How about you mind your own fuckin’ business and not mine, huh, Marston? Which, right now, is takin’ care of Bo an’ leavin’ me the fuck alone, like I fuckin’ asked you to!”

“Alright, fuck you too, Morgan,” John says bitterly, but Arthur’s already turned his back, stomping off toward Hosea’s tent, Copper right at his heels.

Time morphs, somehow, both speeds up and slows down, and, before Arthur can figure how exactly it all happened, the lamp is lit, and he’s perched on Hosea’s little camp stool, leaning his elbows heavily on Hosea’s small table, cradling his spinning head in his hands, and his hat is on the table, too, and Copper is laying at his feet, and a good half of the originally-full bottle of Hosea’s whisky is just -- gone. Somehow.

He’d meant to take the bottle back to his own lean-to, but the distance had just seemed so long, he’d given up, posted up right here, in Hosea’s tent, somehow.

Arthur lifts his head from his hands, sighs heavily about it, takes another long drink.

Copper lifts his head at the sound of Arthur’s sigh, sits up, lays his chin on Arthur’s knee, nudges at Arthur with his nose. Arthur looks down at him, moves his left hand to the top of Copper’s head, starts stroking his long, soft ears.

“How come I always get what I deserve, huh, boy?” he asks him, and his voice comes out so much more gravelly, so much _sadder_ , than he’d thought it would. “An’ how come what I deserve is always --” and he huffs out another rough sigh, takes another drink. Something in his belly is all clenched up, hurting, despite how drunk he knows he is, how much he feels like his body could up and float away at any moment here. “Shit,” Arthur sighs, and the clenched feeling in his stomach rises up through him, constricting his chest and his throat and his head, stilling his hand on Copper’s head.

Copper moves his head, nudges at Arthur’s hand with his cold nose, and Arthur starts petting him again. “Okay, nosy,” he grumbles, and he can barely bring himself to look down at Copper, can only think, sudden and unbidden, about how, someday, he’s gonna get what he deserves: About how, someday, this creature, so dear to him, so innocent, will unfairly die, too, because -- because that’s what happens to all the beings that Arthur loves, that’s -- that’s what he deserves, it’s --

Arthur takes a fast drink, clenches his jaw as he swallows; wishes, to all things high and holy, that he could just make that inner voice shut the _fuck_ up, stop whispering to him about how everything he loves will die, how everything he touches will be ruined, about how maybe -- maybe it’s _him_ that needs to die, maybe _he’s_ the problem, maybe if he just --

Copper’s nosing at Arthur’s hand again. “Stop,” Arthur whispers, around the tightness in his throat. “Stop, Cop,” he says, and he can barely breathe, he can barely speak, the idea of _just killing himself, right here, right now,_ weighing too heavy on him, sounding too, too good, all of a sudden.

He takes another drink, and Copper is still nosing at him. “Copper, please,” Arthur groans, trying to push him away. “I can’t deal with you right now.” _And no one can deal with you, either_ , his mind supplies. Who would _really_ miss him if he were gone? Hosea would look after Copper, and John after Bo, and --

Copper makes a frustrated little noise in his mouth, huffs at Arthur, sits up and swats at Arthur’s arm with his paw. “I don’t know what’cha want from me,” Arthur says desperately, looking down at him. “Can’t you see I’m --” He picks his left hand up, puts both elbows back on the table, leans his forehead back into his palms. “I don’t know,” he whispers, staring down at the wood grain of Hosea’s table. He swallows heavily, picks his head up, takes another long drink; the bottle is nearly empty. His head is _spinning_ , but he feels like he can’t close his eyes, the image of the the row of small crosses in the ground burned permanently onto the back of his eyelids, -- but he’s struggling with keeping his eyes open, too, everything blurry and dizzying and out of place in the low, yellow light of Hosea’s lamp.

He leans his head into his hands again, looking back down at the table’s worn surface. “I don’t know,” he whispers again. Copper adjusts himself, wiggles in between Arthur’s legs, puts both his paws up on Arthur’s thigh, lifts himself up, nosing at Arthur’s face, licking at his beard. Arthur leans back, pushes at him. “Get down, boy,” he says, but Copper keeps licking Arthur’s face, and Arthur lets himself close his eyes, puts one hand on Copper’s neck.

“Wha’ d’ya want,” Arthur asks him, but the image of the little crosses, crooked in the fresh earth, blooms before his closed eyes, and he sucks in a deep, shaky breath through his nose, opens his eyes, desperately trying not to think about it. He pulls his face away from Copper, shoves at him again, picks the bottle up, drains it in a long sip, peering down into the empty bottle as he swallows. He knows there’s another in reserve, and Arthur sees no good reason why he shouldn’t open it.

“Welp,” Arthur sighs to no one, thinking about Hosea’s future reaction to both of his bottles being gone, not able to bring himself to care very much. _Just another mark toward gettin’ rid of myself_ , that traiterous inner voice suggests. _Not good for nothin’ but causin’ grief to folks_ \--

He pushes himself unsteadily to his feet, goes and digs back around in Hosea’s little chest at the foot of his cot, gets out the second bottle that he knew was there. The stool and the table seem so far away, too far for his trembling legs, and Arthur lets gravity have its way with him, crumples down to his ass onto the hard earth, onto the rug that covers the ground at the foot of Hosea’s cot, leans his back against the side of the cot, pulls his knees up to his chest.

Copper sits next to him expectantly, looks up at him from just in front of his left knee. “What,” Arthur says. Copper looks at him for a moment longer, then huffs quietly, turns in a circle, lays down at Arthur’s feet. Arthur takes a drink.

This bottle is decidedly lower quality than the first, and he can’t stop himself from pulling a face, from coughing at the liquor burns its way through his body. “Shit,” he coughs, clearing his throat. Arthur takes another drink, coughs more, leans his right arm over onto the side of Hosea’s cot, buries his face in the crook of his elbow, his forearm resting on the edge of the cot, looks down at the pattern of the rug.

He feels like he could die, like if he doesn’t pull out his pistol and fucking shoot himself right now, this shitty fuckin’ liquor might just finish the job for him. He groans into his forearm, closes his eyes, presses his face closer to Hosea’s cot. The smell of Hosea’s blankets, rough with tobacco and gun oil and horse and earth and something uniquely _Hosea_ , tugs at him, makes him feel like just a boy again, like a boy who ain’t learned nothing, like this decade that he’s spent with Hosea and Dutch has taught him absolutely damn _nothing_. Like he ain’t grown up, ain’t figured out how to protect _no one_.

Oh, he’d thought he was a man, alright. Twenty-six years old. _Grown_. He’d had his heart dragged through the mud by Mary, some six years ago, but he had picked himself the hell back up again, let himself fall for another woman, for Eliza, with her dark hair and her beautiful eyes and her kind heart and her no-shit-takin’ attitude. He’d been grown enough to be a father Isaac, and to _act_ like a damn father, too, when he could make the time away between jobs -- but he hadn’t been grown enough to know better, to try to sway Eliza’s strong, proud, independent nature, to try to overrule her deep devotion to her aging parents and their ranch in favor of keeping her and Isaac close to him. Hadn’t been grown enough to successfully talk her into marryin’ him, to convince her that riding with Dutch and Hosea would’ve been safer than staying where she was, out in the West Elizabeth countryside. He’d thought he had been doing a progressive, adult thing, treatin’ ‘Liza as a full equal to himself, lettin’ her stay where she wanted, do what she wanted, while he sent money as often as he could, spent weeks at a time gone from Dutch and Hosea’s side to be with her and their boy before coming back, running more jobs. It sure had seemed grown-up at the time, lettin’ her choose, lettin’ her decide about not getting married, lettin’ her be the one to give him the say-so about what she wanted from him, bein’ okay with things playing out like they did. He’d even half-agreed with her, let her talk him into the idea that, yeah, maybe she _had_ been right, maybe she just _might_ have been safer out there, on the ranch, away from folk, than running with the gang, gettin’ too close to trouble.

The days he’d spent with her and Isaac had always felt unreal, like he’d been stepping over into someone else’s life, a life in which he was a good, strong father, a gentle, giving lover, a grown, confident man, who let his woman take the helm of the family’s direction, and was happy with it. A man who had everything he needed.

How wrong he’d been, how goddamn _wrong_ he’d been, he thinks, now, pressing his face into Hosea’s blankets. All his love and care for her, their boy, her parents, and all those four long years of that progressive, grown-up relationship? Reduced to nothing, now. Nothing but crooked little crosses in the ground.

Arthur lifts his head, takes another drink. Copper’s gotten up, turns in another two circles, curls up back down beside Arthur with another frustrated little huff. Arthur looks down at him, and Copper turns his big brown eyes up to him; Arthur can only look for so long, feels so much like shit, like even this damn dog deserves a better owner than him. Like everybody deserves better than him, more than all he could ever possibly give. He has to look away, has to take another drink.

“I can’t help you, m’friend,” Arthur manages between sips of the awful liquor. His hands are trembling as he handles the bottle, but he’s getting used to it, now, the burning feeling more like a warmth his soul desperately needs than like a pain his body can barely endure. “Can’t help anyone,” he admits in a shaky whisper. “I’m.”

He sighs again, takes another drink, swallows it heavily, around the goddamn lump in his throat that won’t go away, no matter how much liquor he pours down at it. “Useless,” he sighs, finishing his thought. “I’m goddamn fuckin’ _useless_ ,” he whispers, and his eyes are prickling, burning in a way they haven’t in years, a way they haven’t since he truly _was_ a useless boy.

“Fuck,” he breathes, around a harsh, gasping breath in. He closes his eyes, blindly taking another drink, and he breathes out harshly, the air hitching and sticking in his chest. He can’t control whatever the fuck his body is doing, and his sudden, rapid, shallow breathing reminds him of Dutch, when he’s in one of those dizzying _panics_ that he gets, those awful, low moods that Dutch hates for Arthur or anyone else to witness, that only Hosea can snap him out.

Arthur scrubs both his hands over his face, presses the heels of them into his eyes. It makes his head hurt and spin even more than it already is, and his hands come away damp. “Goddamn it,” he whispers, hard, angry at himself. He wants another drink, but he picks up the bottle and discovers that it is, somehow, already empty. “Fuck!” he exclaims, throwing it weakly over to the other side of Hosea’s tent, feeling Copper flinch beside him. “God, fuckin’, damn it,” he gasps, feeling tears start to run down his face, lodge in his beard; he wipes roughly at them with the back of his hand.

Copper pushes his nose against Arthur’s leg, and Arthur lets his left hand rest on the back of Copper’s neck, digs in with his fingers to his familiar fur, turns his head to the right, back into the foot of Hosea’s cot, starts crying, in earnest, into the blanket.

“Goddamnit, I should fuckin’ --” he gasps into the blanket, between sobs. He lifts his head, sniffs, breathing all shaky and awful still.

Reaches for his pistol, at his hip, with his free right hand.

Unholsters it.

Holds it in his open palm awhile, looks down at it.

Cries more, laying the pistol in his lap as he scrubs at his face.

“Fuck,” he gasps, and he swallows, picks the pistol back up. “Fuckin’ _useless_ ,” he sobs, lifting the pistol higher, peering down its barrel. “Better just --”

Copper gets to his feet, starts wagging his tail, whuffling at the air in front of him, and the flap of the tent is being pulled back before Arthur can react, Hosea ducking gracefully under, letting it close behind him, stiffening when he realizes he’s not alone inside the tent. Arthur freezes up, drops his hands into his lap, his eyes to the ground.

“What the -- _Arthur_?” Hosea says. He walks over to him, leaving Arthur to look down at his boots; Arthur can’t bring himself to look up, up Hosea’s miles of long legs, up to his surely disappointed face.

Arthur turns his head to the right, buries his face against the side of the cot again. He feels Hosea’s hand on his left shoulder, perceives that Hosea’s crouched down in front of him, but he can’t move, he can’t look at him, he can’t let him know just how --

“What the hell is wrong?” Hosea asks, concern in his voice, but somehow the way he asks it is gentle, impossibly gentle. He lays his hand over the ball joint of Arthur’s left shoulder. “What’s goin’ on?” he asks, squeezing at Arthur’s shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to be back for -- what’s goin’ on?” Arthur shakes his head. “Are you hurt?” Hosea asks, squeezing Arthur’s shoulder tighter, his tone more urgent.

Arthur bites down on his lower lip until he tastes blood, determined not to let Hosea witness him crying. He shakes his head again, feeling the blanket rasp against his face as he does. “No,” he manages. “Nothin’s goin’ on, I’m jus’ --”

“Horse shit,” Hosea says. “Arthur,” he says, and he’s closer to Arthur, now, close enough for Arthur to feel the warmth radiating from his body as he kneels, shuffles in to Arthur’s right, lays a hand on the back of Arthur’s head. “Look at me, son,” Hosea says, and that -- hearing Hosea call him _son_ , like he has a million times before, these past ten years -- it undoes him, somehow, brings to him the memory of Isaac’s tiny hands, the image of the little row of crosses in the ranch yard, the crest of love that had always surged through Arthur when he’d called that boy _son_ , when he’d heard Eliza say it to _their son_. All of it, it undoes him, and he presses his face harder into Hosea’s cot, his whole body shaking under Hosea’s hands as a sob overtakes him, rips violently through his chest.

“Arthur,” Hosea’s saying, alarm sharpening his gentle way. “Arthur, what --” and he’s running both his hands over the back of Arthur’s head, looking, Arthur figures distantly, for some kind of injury. “Look at me, son,” Hosea says again, a little more firmly, and he reaches under, catches Arthur’s chin in one hand, tugs at him.

Arthur gives up, lets him, lets him pick his head up, away from the cot, lets him cup his jaw in both his hands, but he keeps his eyes squeezed shut, unable to open them, to own this. “Don’t,” he whispers, broken, desperate, swallowing heavily. “Don’t, Hosea, I --”

“What?” Hosea asks. Arthur shakes his head against Hosea’s palms, bites his lip more, sucks in his breath through his nose, his dizzy head manically trying to think of how to get out of this situation, how to get away, how to goddamn fucking _disappear_ , cease his existence. He remembers the weight of his pistol in his lap, and, squeezing his eyes more tightly closed, clenching his jaw together, he tightens his right hand around it, tenses up his whole body, takes a shaky, sobbing breath in through his nose, decides that he’s just gotta --

“What the hell are you --” and one of Hosea’s hands stays on Arthur’s face, but the other is running with quick purpose down the length of Arthur’s right arm, is closing over Arthur’s hand. “Give me this, you’ve been goddamn drinkin’,” Hosea says, and Arthur shakes his head, but he opens to him anyway, opens his hand, lets it fall, slack and useless, to the ground beside him, as Hosea takes the pistol, lays it in the open chest, where his liquor bottles ought to be.

Useless, _useless_ , Arthur’s brain tells him, and he takes another gasping, sobbing handful of breaths.

“What the hell is goin’ on with you?” Hosea asks, gripping Arthur’s jaw with both hands again, a little tighter, now. “Talk to me, my boy.”

“I --” Arthur starts. “They’re --” and he finally opens his eyes, finally looks at Hosea, kneeling there in front of him. He’s all blurry between Arthur’s tears and how goddamn drunk Arthur feels, but Arthur still notices the deep, deep frown Hosea’s wearing, the kind softness of his brown eyes, the way that anger and love are fighting for control of his facial expression, the way that love’s gentle concern is mostly winning.

“You can tell me, alright?” Hosea says, something in his face softening, his frown becoming less severe as he looks into Arthur’s eyes, runs his thumbs over Arthur’s jawline. “Whatever it is, you can --”

And Arthur closes his eyes, breathing unevenly, shakily, into the image of the crooked little crosses in the earth. “They’re dead,” he breathes.

“Who?” Hosea asks, and then he gasps, audibly. “No,” he says slowly. “You don’t mean --” and Arthur’s nodding his head against Hosea’s palms, taking more gasping, sobbing breaths, feeling a fresh wave of tears prickling at his eyes.

“I do,” he manages to whisper, his voice cracking, “I goddamn do mean that --” and he almost can’t say it, grits his teeth, makes himself fucking say it, -- “that ‘Liza ‘n Isaac ‘n her folks are -- are dead,” and he dissolves again into tears.

“Arthur, oh, no, Arthur, come here,” Hosea’s murmuring, gentle, so gentle, and both his hands slide to the back of Arthur’s head, and Arthur, slack in his grief, lets himself be moved, lets Hosea pull him close. Hosea’s lowered himself all the way down to sitting, his legs crossed in front of him, and he’s pulling Arthur to him, wrapping his long, long arms around Arthur’s shoulders, holding him close and tight, Arthur’s head tucking in under his chin, Arthur’s useless, useless hands folding themselves into fists in the fabric of Hosea’s vest. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Hosea’s whispering, and Arthur presses into his his warm, wiry, body, shakes under the force of his sobs.

“ ‘m sorry,” he manages, and he feels Hosea shaking his head on top of Arthur’s head, petting his hair and his back.

“No, no, son, don’t apologize,” Hosea says, his chin sharp against the crown of Arthur’s head with the movement of his jaw as he speaks. “I’ve got you, now, it’s --” Hosea cuts himself off with a sigh. “I’ve got you, I promise, I’ve got you,” he says, instead, and Arthur knows -- knows it won’t ever be okay, not really, if Hosea can’t even bring himself to say it.

“I should’ve been there,” Arthur admits in a breathy gasp, into the hollow of Hosea’s collarbone. “Goddamnit, Hosea, I should’ve fuckin’ been there, I’m so --” and Hosea’s stroking his hair, shaking his head still, whispering _no, Arthur, no_ , but Arthur keeps going, can’t stop. “Goddamn fuckin’ useless, fuck, I --” and he’s clinging to Hosea like he’s drowning -- “can’t keep anyone safe, I -- just wanna die, _fuck_ , Hosea, if everyone I love’s gotta die before me I better just go ahead and --”

“Oh, no, Arthur, no, no,” Hosea’s saying, over and over, the sound of his voice ringing through Arthur’s dizzy head, _no, no, no, no_ , “no, son.”

“Yeah,” Arthur argues. “I just wanna die, Hosea,” he croaks, but he can’t put any heat behind it, has no fight left in himself.

“I know you feel that way right now,” Hosea says. “I know you do. I know. I know.” Arthur can’t catch his breath, and Hosea pushes at his head a little, positions Arthur’s right ear directly over his heart, the strong rhythm of it inexplicably soothing as it thuds from Hosea’s chest to Arthur’s dizzy head. “But I’ve got you, now, son,” Hosea whispers, and then he falls quiet for a long moment, running his fingers slowly through Arthur’s tangled hair, letting Arthur breathe into him.

Arthur’s tears, and his runaway breath, have started to calm a little, and he realizes that Copper has nosed his way nearly between them. He sniffs, pulls away from Hosea’s now-damp vest and shirt, glances down at Copper, lets one hand fall into Copper’s fur, scritches him behind the ears.

Hosea runs both his hands over Arthur’s face, wiping the last of Arthur’s tears with the calloused pads of his thumbs. “So -- what happened?” he asks, quiet, gentle, and Arthur sighs.

“I got there and --” he swallows heavily. “They were just all -- dead.” He shakes his head, runs his right hand over his face and hair. “Nearest neighbor, few miles down the road, said it was a robbery, I don’t --” he sighs again. “I don’t fuckin’ know.” He sighs, closes his eyes. “I don’t fuckin’ know, Hosea,” he whispers, and Hosea, his hands cupping Arthur’s jaw again, pulls Arthur back in, presses his lips to Arthur’s forehead, holds him there like that for a moment, his breath warm on Arthur’s face. Arthur winds his arms around Hosea’s torso; Hosea lets him go, pushes Arthur’s head back down, lets Arthur rest his face in the crook of Hosea’s neck.

“I am so sorry, son,” Hosea murmurs, holding him, running one hand up and down Arthur’s back, and he really _means_ it, Arthur _knows_ he does.

Dutch likes to talk big, boastful and affectionate and big, sometimes, about _raisin’ those boys_ , about how both he and Hosea have been excellent guardians and caretakers and teachers for Arthur and John over the years, about how they’ve both taught them everything they both know -- and, it ain’t that Arthur doesn’t love Dutch, it ain’t that at all, because he _does_ \-- but, here, now, in this moment, with his spinning head and the tear tracks drying on his cheeks all cradled into the dip of Hosea’s collarbone, with his nose pressed against the tough cords of Hosea’s neck, with his body and his spirit wrapped completely in Hosea’s protective, gentle care, Arthur thinks he probably loves Hosea more than anyone, more than anything. More, even, than Dutch.

Another handful of still, quiet moments pass, Arthur petting the soft fur behind Copper’s ears with one hand, loosely holding onto the front of Hosea’s vest with the other, Hosea holding him, rubbing his back.

Arthur feels like a kid again, like a kid even younger than he was when he first met Hosea and Dutch, and he wishes, suddenly, fiercely, that he could’ve been as small as Isaac had been, now, when he’d first met them, wonders what it would’ve felt like to’ve grown up with love like this, from the beginning. And he wishes, fierce and aching, that he could’ve grown up, himself, to be a father like this, one unashamed to hold his grown son if he needed him, one who would’ve loved, accepted, unconditionally.

Arthur feels his bottom lip start to tremble again, with all of this, thoughts of fathers and sons and the hole in his goddamn heart swirling around in his dizzy head.

But Hosea sighs, and he says, “So, you drank all my fuckin’ liquor, didn’t you,” and Arthur laughs instead, shakily, a weird, wet sound through his sniffly nose -- but it’s a laugh, goddamn it, not another sob.

“Yep,” he says. “ ‘Fraid I did. Just -- you usually have the most of it layin’ ‘round, an’, an’ I know where you keep it, too.”

Hosea sighs, shakes his head. “Guess I need a new keepin’ spot, don’t I,” he mutters, playing at being disappointed, but Arthur knows better.

“And you thought drinkin’ was the best way to deal with it?” Hosea asks. Arthur nods, into his chest. “And what did you learn?”

“Same thing I figure it’s taken your ass this whole year to learn,” Arthur says, just this side of not sassing him, and Hosea laughs, the sound big and warm and unexpected, resounding through Arthur’s head, where he’s still leaning into him.

“Maybe so,” he says. He sighs. “Maybe so.”

Hosea’s warm, and the steadiness of his breath and his pulse are comforting Arthur beyond measure, beyond words, and he drifts, thinking about Eliza and Isaac, but when he starts to get too sad he just focuses his dizzy, fucked-up brain back in on Hosea, on the pattern and the feel of his body, on the way he’s holding him, close and safe.

For how long they sit on the ground like that, Arthur doesn’t know. But eventually Hosea dips his head, catches Arthur’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, murmurs, “Your drunk ass ain’t fallin’ asleep on me, now, are ya,” and Arthur startles, jerks, looks up at him, guilty, caught.

Hosea smiles at him, shakes his head, pats his cheek. “Get some rest, come on,” he says, and he pushes himself up to standing, leaving Arthur sitting on the floor, his hands slack and open and useless at his sides again, missing the sturdiness of Hosea beside him, around him. “Come on, son,” Hosea’s saying, shoving at Arthur’s shoulders, getting both his hands under Arthur’s arms.

“Wait,” Arthur says, his brain catching up to what’s happening to his body, realizing that Hosea’s shoving and tugging him over to his own cot.

“I ain’t draggin’ you to your own bed, you’re too heavy,” Hosea says. “Come on, get in,” he coaxes, and Arthur plants his left foot on the ground, helps shove himself gracelessly up into Hosea’s cot, landing unevenly on his right side.

“Here,” Hosea murmurs, and he tugs at Arthur’s boots, leaves them on the ground with his socks, works the buckle of his gun belt open, slides it out from under him, lays that on the ground, too. He shoves Arthur’s feet further into the cot, tugs the blanket out from under him, pulls it over him.

“Where’re you gonna sleep,” Arthur slurs, even as he presses in closer to Hosea’s bedding, relaxes more as Hosea tucks him securely into the blanket.

“Oh,” Hosea says, “I’ve got a spot,” and he rubs Arthur’s back, over the blanket; brushes Arthur’s hair from his forehead. “Can I tell him?” Hosea asks, and it strikes Arthur as a non sequitur, leaves him wondering what Hosea’s talking about, until he realizes that what Hosea means is Dutch, that Hosea is gonna go sleep with _Dutch_ , and if Arthur were more sober he’d be giving him so much shit about that, because, _fuckin’ finally._

“Y’all kissed and made up, huh,” he drawls sleepily, and it’s not the best he could’ve done, but he can’t let the moment pass with no comment at all.

“Ah, you hush,” Hosea says, thwacking Arthur lightly on the back of his head, but there’s a smile playing around his face, and he opens his hand, pets Arthur’s hair a little more. “Can I, or do you want to?” he asks. “I don’t wanna --”

Arthur sighs, leans back into Hosea’s hand, something about his touch grounding him, making him feel less like he’s spinning sideways. “You can tell him,” he sighs. “I donno if I --” and what he wants to say is that he’s scared, he’s scared of how he’s gonna feel in the morning, how he’s gonna feel for the rest of his life. Scared of how scary the idea of telling feels, scared that if he wakes up and starts saying it to everyone, it’ll somehow feel even more real, even worse, than it already does. “You tell him,” Arthur whispers, hiding his face into Hosea’s bedding.

“Okay,” Hosea says. He bends at the waist, touches Arthur’s face, rests his hand on the side of Arthur’s jaw. “Look at me, son,” he says, and Arthur glances up to him, to the open affection in his expression. “You come get me if you need me, okay?” he asks. “No more of that --” and his lips pinch together into a thin line -- “that awful kinda thinking. You start feelin’ like -- like you wanna --” he huffs out a sigh, like it’s impossibly hard to say, and maybe it is, for him, although Arthur’s brain easily supplies the missing phrase, _fucking kill myself? Yeah, and maybe I still should_ \-- “you come to me, do you hear me?”

Arthur swallows heavily, tells that awful voice in his brain to shut the fuck up. “I hear,” he says.

“Promise me,” Hosea says.

“I promise,” Arthur says. Hosea narrows his eyes at him. “I do,” Arthur says, and Hosea nods, leans in, brushes the briefest kiss to Arthur’s temple.

“Stay,” Hosea says, softly, to Copper, as he straightens up, and Arthur’s aware of Copper laying down on the ground right next to him, curling up into a ball again.

Arthur drifts, the weird, hazy, non-restful sleep of being absolutely fuckin’ drunk, and he jerks awake some time later to the urgent feeling of spit filling his mouth, of his stomach fucking churning up inside him.

It’s still dark out as he stumbles, quick as he can on his clumsy, bare feet, out of the tent, trying to avoid throwing up inside Hosea’s tent, just barely making it around back before he can’t hold it back any longer, throwing up everything left in his stomach into the tall grasses behind the tent. He coughs, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, kneeling in the dirt, and he retches again, his throat and nose and head burning, burning, as he throws up more. He scrabbles at the dirt with his fingers of his free hand, breathing hard, coughing, trying to stay upright on his knees, feeling so fucking _drunk_ still, feeling like he’s about to fall face-first over into his own goddamn vomit, feeling like he’s about to --

“Easy now, Arthur, easy,” someone’s saying, and there’s a heavy hand on his back, all of a sudden, cool bands in certain spots around the warm fingers, and that’s how Arthur knows it’s Dutch, leaning over him from behind, rubbing his back. “There,” Dutch coos softly, “there, you’ll feel better with all’a that outta your system, now,” and Dutch puts his arm around Arthur’s shoulders, hauls him up to standing. Arthur leans his weight heavily into Dutch, doesn’t feel like he has much of a choice about it, his legs trembling under him like a new colt’s.

“Come on, easy, now, son,” Dutch says, and he’s steering Arthur back to Hosea’s tent with a strong arm around him, opening the tent’s flap, letting him sit down heavily back onto the edge of Hosea’s cot. “Go back to sleep, huh?” he asks.

Arthur coughs, clears his throat, swallows, a sharp, bitter taste lingering in his mouth and nose. Copper’s up, whuffling at him, licking his hand, and Arthur grunts, lets his hand drop to Copper’s head, tries to ground himself.

“Let him drink something first, Jesus, Dutch,” Hosea’s saying from somewhere behind Dutch. When and how Hosea appeared here with them, Arthur doesn’t know, just that his face is swimming into view behind Dutch’s shoulder, that he’s passing him a canteen of cool water, that Arthur is drinking the water as though it’s the best goddamn thing he’s ever tasted. He drinks until the canteen is empty, and he knows Dutch and Hosea are having a soft conversation a half-dozen steps away from him, both of them watching him out of one corner of their eyes, but what they’re talking about, Arthur couldn’t say, too absorbed in the feeling of the cool water sliding down his throat, of Copper nudging at his hand with his sleep-warm nose.

He finishes the water, sets the canteen down on the ground, scrubs a hand over his face, groans. It’s all hitting him again, the forever-imprinted memory of the crooked row of crosses and the awful, fatal way he’d felt, the way Hosea had stopped him from --

Arthur’s breath is doing that fucking _thing_ again, coming too sharp and too fast and sticking in his lungs without his control or his permission, and Hosea whips his head around, and before Arthur knows it, Hosea’s kneeling in front of him, looking up at him, both his hands tight on Arthur’s knees.

“Arthur,” he says, “look at me,” and Arthur obeys, looks, and Hosea meets his eyes, reaches for Arthur’s left hand with his right hand, puts it flat and open on his chest. Arthur realizes, all once, that Hosea’s dressed for bed, and that he can feel Hosea’s heart beating through his thin undershirt. “I’ve got you,” Hosea murmurs, and one of Hosea’s hands is on the back of Arthur’s neck, the pad of his thumb rubbing slow circles over the point where his neck meets his spine. He crouches there in front of Arthur for a long, long moment, rubbing his neck, letting him feel his heartbeat.

Arthur tries to breathe, but he feels, feels so, so heavily, the weight of the knowledge of death, the black-hole ache of ‘Liza and Isaac, blocking his lungs, making his head spin.

But he feels Hosea’s heart against his open palm, too. Safe, Arthur realizes, he feels _safe_ , in Hosea’s hands like this, despite everything.

Arthur’s lungs calm themselves down, eventually, and Hosea’s hand slides from the back of his neck to cups his jaw as he looks at Arthur, long and quiet. Arthur meets his eyes again, looks around him, realizes that Dutch has been sitting patiently on Hosea’s little stool this whole time.

“Go back to sleep,” Dutch pronounces, and Arthur’s not sure if Dutch is telling him or Hosea, because they both nod. Arthur lets himself fall back into Hosea’s bedding, lets his eyes close again, and Hosea, for the second time tonight, goes through the motions of tucking him in, brushing his hair out of his forehead, settling him in.

This time it’s Dutch, though, who’s bending down, brushing his lips to Arthur’s temple, even though Hosea’s still there, too, still running his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “Love you, Arthur,” Dutch whispers into Arthur’s forehead, because this is Dutch, because he says what he feels. “I’m sorry, son,” he adds as he straightens up, just a little, pulls away. “We’ll --” and Dutch huffs out a sigh. “We -- Hosea and I --” Dutch lays his hand on Arthur’s cheek. “We’ve got you, son. We’ll -- we’ll get there.”

“Mm,” Arthur hums sleepily. “I know, Dutch.”

“In the morning,” Hosea says, soft, soft. “Let him sleep.”

“Yeah,” Dutch says, “in the morning,” and he moves his hand from Arthur’s cheek, puts his arm around Hosea’s waist, instead.

Hosea’s hand is still in Arthur’s hair, and Arthur opens his eyes, blinks up at Hosea. “I love you,” he whispers, and Hosea smiles, easy, gentle, gentle.

“Love you too, son,” Hosea murmurs, and Arthur holds onto the way it sounds, to the way his hand feels in his hair; falls asleep clinging to the idea of that warm feeling, doing its best to smother the coldness filling his lungs.

**Author's Note:**

> goodbye,,, i made myself cry writing this  
> this chapter was written in one sitting, not beta'ed, and posted at 2 a.m.; we die like men. it might be edited Later  
> dedicated to those of yall who let me yell about my feelings about this dysfunctional family on discord 24/7, yall know who you are <3  
> [tumblr](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/)


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